The Complexities of Sexual Desire

Over the years of working with couples, I have come to appreciate the complexities of sexual desire.  Sexual desire is affected by many factors: hormones, physical health, psychological issues, child-birth, menopause(female & male), past experiences, emotional wiring and emotional distancing due to unresolved conflict, to name a few.

So it is not surprising that couples often have differences in sexual desire, which sooner or later leads to problems for most couples.  Desire problems are the most common sexual complaint for couples.  Based on recent research by David Schnarch ( Intimacy and Desire), couples rated their overall sexual relationship as  follows:

• 12% had no sex in the last year.
• 21% have sex several times a year.
• 34%  have sex once or twice a month.
• 26% have sex once or twice a week.
• 7% have sex 4 or 5 times a week.

Whereas many people think sex once or twice a week is average for most couples, that's really a minority, one out of four couples (26%).  Only 7% are really burning up the sheets. The vast majority of people (67%) are having sex once or twice a month or less. Given these statistics, by any scientific standard it is prudent to say normal people have sexual desire problems. Arguably, you are abnormal if you don't!

When there is a low sexual desire problem, a number of issues, which I listed above, should be checked out and when unresolved conflict about other issues in the marriage is the problem, marriage counseling should probably be sought.  It is said that while the sexual relationship accounts for only about 10-20 percent of marital happiness, that percent remains very important for most couples, because a good sexual relationship makes you feel close emotionally.  Actually, sex produces "feel good" chemicals such as endorphins and oxitocyn (the bonding hormone).  The sexual connection is not the only route to intimacy, but remains important nevertheless.

Most people believe that love automatically creates sexual desire in healthy people.  At first glance, this makes a lot of sense.  But once you buy into the belief that sexual desire comes "naturally," you're in for a load of eventual problems.  You'll feel pressured to create something that just isn't there.  You'll get defensive and despondent when problems surface in your sex life. You (especially if you are male), begin to feel defective and ashamed and withdraw from your partner even more. While women are more likely to have low desire, we now know there are more men with low sexual desire than has been assumed. And then when your spouse starts criticizing that you are too sex driven or sex depriving, it only makes matters worse.

David Schnarch writes that "there's always a low desire spouse and there's always a high desire spouse--and there's one of each in most marriages."  The most freeing point of this view is that neither the high desire position or the low desire position is right or wrong.  There are simply differences.

So what to do? I will try to answer that question in my next blog entry, but basically it comes down to this: spouses having gentle conversations about their own sexual needs and anxieties without criticizing one another and finding a way to bridge the differences of their sexual desires so that sexual intimacy is not lost altogether.

Unnecessary Divorce

It is a pretty good sign-of-the-times when the NY Times Modern Love series features Children-of-Divorce two weeks in a row. It seems there is a growing number of children of divorce who are tying hard to avoid making the same mistakes of their parents.  Many of today's Modern Lovers have walked out of the ashes of their parents' marriages and don't want to repeat it with their own children.  The title of the essay in NY Times, August 24, is We Pledge Allegiance.  (see http://tinyurl.com/mbmig88  )

The author of the essay, Debbie Greene, writes: "As a child of divorce, I have tried over the years to figure out the secret to a lasting marriage.  In college, I started dating a boy named Josh.  We were both children of divorce, and although marriage and a family seemed 1,000 years away, we did agree on one thing:  We would never mess up our children with divorce.  It wasn't easy, but now their children are grown and they feel grateful about the promise they made to one another, not only because of the children but also how they have grown over the years through the good times and the "precipice" bad.

As we know, we do live in a divorce culture.  The divorce rate has fallen a bit, but it is still up near 50%--and even higher for 2nd marriages.  When divorce leaves the realm of "it couldn't possibly happen to us" and creeps into the domain of "maybe that's what I will have to do," the idea often gains a tragic momentum of its own.  Unfortunately, if you have reached this point the pain and fear you feel may be enough to blur your perception of reality and your judgment about the best course of action for you and your marriage.  Some couples don't take the warning signs seriously until it feels too late and in some cases IS too late.

Surveys in the United Sates and Australia have shown that 40 percent or more of divorced people regret their divorce and that the great majority of divorced people believe that one or the other of them could have worked much harder to save the marriage.

William Doherty (Take Back your Marriage), believes there are hard reasons and soft reason for divorce. The hard reasons include emotional and physical abuse, ongoing infidelities, and untreated addictions.  The soft reasons include ongoing misattunements which lead to blaming attacks, defensiveness and emotional distancing.  The soft reasons can be repaired if both spouses take responsibility for their part of their repetitive cycle.  With the unexpected changes, challenges and stresses of life (children, economy, illnesses, etc), unmet emotional needs and misattunements are inevitable in marriages, as in any relationship. What matters is that couples acknowledge those misattunements in a nonjudgmental manner and then learn to repair those misattunements and not allow them to fester.

In unnecessary divorces, I believe that both spouses should carry the responsibility for leadership.  Leadership is not just fighting for your own needs, but also fighting for the marriage--for the "us".  In the best marriages, both people are leaders.  In other words, each spouse takes personal responsibility for accepting his/her role and finding a way back from the precipice before it is too late and the emotional bond becomes irreparable.

Debbie Greene writes at the end of her Times essay:  ....my more mature self realizes that after 23 years of marriage, the key for our relationship to grow and thrive is taking responsibility and finding a soft place to land between the rules we make and the reality we live.

How Love Fails (Part II)... and how love lasts.....

Following up on my last blog entry in July:  Research confirms that the erosion of a couple's love bond begins with absence of emotional support.  Unsupportive behavior such as minimizing the scope of the problem, discouraging the expression of feelings, offering offhand or unhelpful advice, insisting that their partner follow recommendations--was especially predictive of relationship distress.

The second stage is the escalation of conflict, especially negative patterns, such as harsh criticism, defensiveness and withdrawal.  This becomes a cycle in the relationship which actively destroys any sense of emotional safety partners have with each other.

Sue Johnson (Love Sense) describes a couple's first session with a marriage counselor:  George yells at Barbara. "I am a damned psychologist.  I am supposed to understand this stuff, and I can't believe how angry I am.  In my head, I rage at you as I am driving to work.  I hear the sarcasm in my voice and sometimes I wonder who I am turning into.  I watch every minute for you to blame me for everything and turn away from me.  The more I push you to be with me, the more untouchable you become.  I am married to the Ice Queen herself.  You don't care about anyone but yourself.  I want a wife, not a business partner."

Barbara crossed her long legs slowly, tilts her head, and calmly replied. "Then it would be good to try being polite and treat me like a wife.  I do not see the point in all this shouting. And so you are right; I often prefer to leave and be elsewhere."

Lost in a dance they do not understand, their dance takes on a life of its own.  George does not see how his anger makes Barbara fear that she is being rejected, and she does not hear the frantic call for connection underlying his irascibility.  If they can't find a way to step out of their repetitive cycle and risk reaching for each other in another way, their bond cannot be repaired, and the end state--disillusionment, despair, and detachment--will set in.

How love lasts:  Let me be clear, a love relationship is never static; it ebbs and flows.  If we want love to last, we have to grasp this fact and get used to paying attention to and readjusting our level of emotional engagement.  What matters is if we can repair tiny moments of misattunement and come back into harmony.  Bonding--being there for each other and feeling supported by your partner-- is an eternal process of renewal.  Relationship stability depends not on healing huge rifts but on mending the constant small tears.  Without the mending of disconnections as we go along, then couples will most likely fall into the criticism-defend-withdrawal cycle that I have described above.

The mending of those disconnections is one of my primary goals when I work with couples in my office. The other goal, just as important, is to help a couple build a stronger, more durable emotional union.  It can be done, if a couple hasn't waited too long and both partners take responsibility for what needs to change for the mending to happen.

I also suggest my blog entry on Poisonous Criticism.  While you are on my blog, just scroll down to the month of March..... Click and you will see it.

How Love Fails

How--not why--but how does love fail?  Sue Johnson, author of Love Sense, maintains that theories that focus on bad behavior in conflicts alone and lack of communication skills may not always be enough.  Sometimes communication issues are symptoms of something else more important:  the overwhelming fear of being emotionally alone or abandoned.

I am inclined to agree. As I see it, it is not negativity per se that undermines partners' love for each other. Fights can be tolerated, provided there is support and affection in a relationship.  Decreases in positive connection create "disillusionment" and precipitate distress which leads to criticism and/or withdrawal.

The absence of positive, intimate, supportive exchanges has been compared to a virus that takes down the body relational.

Conflict (persistent arguing) is the inflammation that results from this virus.  In a prolonged troubled love relationship, problem solving and practical assistance alone may not be curative.

The potential for unresolved conflict increases as partners are filled with unruly emotions that they do not understand, and find themselves out of sync with each other.  Angry protests at the loss of physical and emotional connection escalate. A slow unwinding of the tie begins.  Lack of comfort and closeness feeds distrust and disagreement, and each failed attempt at a reconnection and repair breeds more distance. So what happens?  Couples build walls when they need bridges.  And that is how love fails.

To shape love and keep it alive, we have to be open and responsive, emotionally as well as physically. When emotional starvation becomes the norm, and negative patterns of outraged criticism and obstinate defensiveness and withdrawal take over, our perspective changes. 

Our lover slowly begins to feel like an enemy.  Our most familiar friend turns into a stranger.  Trust begins to wither and die.  And that is how love fails.

When this happens, can the love connection be restored? Yes.  I have seen it happen in my office many times, especially when couples seek help sooner rather than later.  But it takes time, commitment, and a willingness of both partners to understand and attend to the emotional needs behind every distancing conflict in the relationship.

The bottom line is this:  the way we perceive our partners and the meaning we attribute to his or her actions depends on our sense of emotional connection. 

------ If you are interested in watching a 23 minute lecture about this subject by the master herself, Sue Johnson, go to:   http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-14364/how-to-make-love-last-in-the-age-of-instant-gratification-dr-sue-johnson.html  

The Key to Love: An Experiment

All the research in recent years confirms that the key to love in successful marriages is the depth of attachment--feeling safe with your partner and feeling known. All human beings are wired for attachment from birth through adulthood  Another word for attachment is bonding. Sue Johnson writes: The first and foremost instinct of humans is neither sex nor aggression. It is to seek contact and comforting connection. This is true from birth through adulthood.

So, when we fall in love and marry, what we are actually seeking is a bonding with someone we believe we can trust to be there for us, emotionally and physically.  When that attachment need fails, couples often react in negative hurtful ways, which of course, only intensifies the growing disconnection.  Couples may react angrily when they feel the disconnection is deepening, but underneath that anger is fear of not being loved or appreciated and longing for reassurance, which is very difficult for most couples to talk about.  If they could talk about it in an open non-accusatory manner, they might be able to understand each other's needs and respond empathically. (empathic: responding with understanding, compassion, comprehension, respect).

So in spite of the personality differences all couples have, how can couples sustain that initial connection they felt so strongly when they fell in love and decided to marry?  Well, a book could be written addressing that question and of course many books have indeed been written.  Sue Johnson's Love Sense, is one that I especially like.

So, drawing from Johnson's theory, let me suggest an experiment for you which highlights one of the many ways couples can sustain and strengthen the bonding they long for.

All bonding begins in infancy when a child feels loved and safe with his/her parents.  The difference with adult bonds is that they are more reciprocal than parent-child bonds. So try this:  think of one thing your partner does that makes you feel precious and loved.

How do you reciprocate--that is, what do you do to make him or her feel that same way?

Think about this:  Do you know specifically what makes your partner feel precious and loved?

If not, can you ask?  And then, can you have a respecful conversation about your respective needs?  

Happily Married Couples

The work I do with couples is mostly drawn from the scientific research of John Gottman(Gottman Method) and Sue Johnson (Emotional Focused Therapy) which highlight the importance of healthy communication and emotional connection(bonding) for strong, successful relationships. Based on this research, this is what we know about  happily married couples:

1. Happily married couples behave like good friends.  In other words, their relationships are characterized by respect, affection and empathy.  They pay close attention to what's happening in each other's life and they feel emotionally connected.  John Gottman (What Makes Love Last), made an interesting discovery: spouses in happy, stable marriages made five positive remarks for every one negative remark when they were discussing conflict.  In contrast, couples headed for divorce offered less than one (0.8) positive remark for every single negative remark.  I believe both spouses in most marriages are good persons who have positive core values.  Don't lose sight of that.  Just because your spouse may not see a situation the same way as you, doesn't make her/him wrong or bad.

2.  Happily married couples handle their conflicts in gentle, positive ways.  They recognize that conflict is inevitable in any marriage, and that some problems never get solved, never go away.  But these couples don't get gridlocked in their separate positions.  Instead, they keep talking with each other about their conflicts.  In other words, they listen respectfully to their spouse's perspectives without being dismissive, judgmental, blaming or critical and they find compromises that work for both sides.

3. Happily married couples turn toward each other.  Close relationships consist of a series of "emotional bids"--that is, your partner reaches out for emotional connection with a comment, a question, a smile or a hug.  You can choose to:
          a. turn away, ignoring the bid
          b. turn against, reacting with anger or hostility ( "Can't you see I'm busy!)
          c. turn toward, showing you're open, listening and engaged

Research shows that habitually turning away from or turning against your partner's bids, harms your marriage.  But consistently turning toward your partner strengthens emotional bonds, friendship and romance.  It means "being there" for each other.  It is the fundamental unit of emotional connection, which we now know is the first and foremost instinct of all humans.  When that connection is missing, any marriage will begin to fail and unless help is sought to help heal and strengthen the emotional bond, most marriages will end in divorce or remain painfully empty of love.

What Is Marriage For?

What is marriage for? The traditional answer is for procreation and the continuation of the species.  Marriage can also offer a stable supportive environment for children and helps provide a stabilizing foundation for society.  All true.   However, recent research supports another compelling reason for marriage: emotional connection (duh!).

Emotional connection is a basic human need.  The opposite of connection--emotional isolation--is in fact the most traumatic force for all human beings.  There are many levels/kinds of connection: friends, relatives, children, associates, religious faith...all of which are important in helping to meet the human need for attachment.  But based on recent neuroscience research, the most powerful level of connection--the need to be close and connected, to be known, to feel loved--can be through committed marital relationships.  Sue Johnson, author of Hold Me Tight writes that "in fact the issues that most couples struggle with are not the real issues. They are in fact only symptoms of a weakening emotional connection."

Interestingly, recent research in the field of social neuroscience has highlighted how the lack of emotional connection affects our nervous system.  In one study, measured by an MRI,  it was observed that when threatened with a mildly painful electric shock to the ankles, married women in healthy marriages had decreased brain response to the threat when holding their husband's hand versus a stranger's or no hand at all.  In other words, when they held no one's hand or the hand of a stranger, the electric shock was registered as painful, but not so, when her beloved husband held her hand.  But when the same electrical experiment was later applied to women in distressed marriages, these women reacted just as the women in the original study did when they were holding the hand of a stranger or no hand! (I assume the same would be true of men.)

In another study, women in cohabiting relationships also experienced a more painful response to the electrical shock than married women. I find that quite surprising, actually.

So compared to all others, with the presence of a mate with whom they felt more securely bonded, the women were not just able to cope differently with the pain, they registered even the threat of being shocked differently.

What couples (and therapists) often do not see is that most fights are really protests over emotional disconnection.

As Sue Johnson writes: Underneath all of the distress, partners are really asking each other: "Can I count of you?  Are you there for me? Do I matter to you? Am I valued and accepted by you?"  The anger and criticism are really cries to their lovers to draw their mates back in emotionally and establish a sense of safe connection, which is what marriage is for! Marriage will not keep us safe from the sorrows and pain of life and no marriage is without its disappointments and imperfections. But a good marriage can help provide the faith and strength we need in the face of life's challenges.  Otherwise, marriage will cease to be a warm shelter to anyone. And the shock of disconnection will continue, until sometimes, unfortunately, without help, it may become too late to restore the connection and save the marriage.